The couple quickly grabbed their son, James, who turned two shortly after the incident, from his cot and left the house as the fire took hold.

Dad Steven described the terrifying moment

Steven Cole said: “So it was a Sunday night just after Father’s Day, we went to bed, I was asleep and Sarah came in and woke me up and said there was a fire in the living room.

“So still half asleep I just ran in and picked up James and we just ran out of the house.

“We were standing out on the footpath for a while and we realised we needed to call the neighbours next door and the house adjoining to us to make sure they were out in case the fire did spread, so I was banging on their door for a little while.

“It took a while to get them out and I was trying to stay as far away from the house as possible because we could hear the windows cracking.

"We couldn’t really see any flames but we could hear the noises and we were trying to stay away and not be tempted to go back in and do anything."

Sarah Cole said finding out how much damage had been done was difficult

Mrs Cole added: "I suppose we didn’t realise the full extent until afterwards, so a couple of days later when we went back into the house.

“We realised the lounge was affected because that’s where the fire was but we didn’t realise the extent of the smoke damage until some time afterwards.

The smoke alarm which saved their lives melted in the fire

"That was a very hard time, we saw that every room in the house had got quite heavy smoke damage. That was quite a big moment for us when we realised that.

“We feel very grateful that we survived and that our son is okay but also pretty much all our property has been destroyed and its things you can’t replace, like photos and things that have memories, that’s the hardest.”

The living room was badly charred after the fire (Image: Kent Fire and Rescue Service)